


Operation Camp Stool

by Zoya1416



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Camp Stool, F/M, Traditions are stupid, back ache
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-23
Updated: 2014-06-23
Packaged: 2018-02-05 21:09:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1832371
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zoya1416/pseuds/Zoya1416
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gregor's back pain is interfering with his job.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Operation Camp Stool

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Chair](https://archiveofourown.org/works/633812) by [RogerStenning](https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogerStenning/pseuds/RogerStenning). 



As the armsman opened the door to the private quarters of the Residence, Miles heard the Emperor scream. He looked up with a startle, but the armsman escorting him didn't show any surprise. As they hurried to Gregor's bedroom, he heard the cry again, only it was a kind of “Owww” instead. He was lead to a small side chamber where Gregor lay nude on a massage bed, face down. He had a doctor and therapist at his side. Laisa was there, too, looking worried. He couldn't help noticing that the quilted blue-flowered satin robe belted at the waist didn't hide all her notable cleavage.

There were a dozen or more needles in the emperor's back and some cold packs across the sciatic nerves. Gregor saw Miles when he came in, and began a garbled speech.

“Mie's. Hi Mie's. I ken't take it anymore. No camp stoo' Not gonna take it. N't un mor' minute.”

He kept his head down, apparently resting, humming a bit, only to yelp again when the therapist checked a handheld device and inserted another long needle along the spine.

“What are you doing to him? Why are you hurting him?” Miles felt confused. “Why did you call me?” 

He'd had a long day and had been relaxing at home with the twins, who were jumping on the furniture in a totally non-approved fashion. Miles had been giving points for difficulty of jumps. Ekaterin had sailed in, finished with her bath, brown hair still wrapped in a towel, and smelling deliciously floral. She'd been about to light into him for allowing such activity, when the conconsole had chimed. Since it was the Residence, he had dodged a bullet for now. The look she gave him suggested that the subject had only been dropped temporarily.

Now he was here with a loopy Emperor who wasn't making any sense. 

The therapist scowled at him. “The Emperor has severe back pain and sciatica. I'm doing body-scanned acupuncture insertions.”

Before Miles could reply, Gregor burbled out again. “Feelin' better. Feelin' mush better. Tag, yer it. T'nite it's you.” He startled humming. Laisa held his arm, stroking it.

“What did you give him?” Miles demanded, and the doctor said, “Morphine derivatives. Anti-inflammatories. An anti-anxiety agent. A pain-threshold elevator.”

“All of that? It sounds dangerous.” 

Miles had had to use a cartload of similar medications for his osteoarthritis, but not as much as in his more vigorous mercenary days. Losing the Dendariis still hurt sometimes, but it was as much a get-out-of-jail-free card as anything else. He had always ached severely after a mission, but brushed it off as part of his life. Now he could rest if he needed to, catch a quick nap, get a break for coffee. He hadn't even noticed how much his body had been in pain until it stopped.

“It can all be reversed in minutes, if I have to. But I don't want to, he needs to get these spasms out. That why I called you.”

“Yeh, tonight, tonight, you're the emp'r tonight.” The patient was still burbling and humming.

The physician explained. “He wants you to keep watch tonight. If there are any emergencies, we can awaken him. But if it's something that can be put off, you decide.”

“Sorting snakes,” Miles muttered. “Just what I wanted to do. If anybody calls at night, it's not me they want to see, anyway.”

“He insisted we get you.” The physician shrugged, and turned back to his work.

“Iz you'faultanyway. You kep' talkin.' Talkin.' Alla-time. No more camp stool!”

That came out fairly clearly, and worried Miles even more. He reviewed his performance earlier that day at the Council of Counts. The subject being hashed out—the timing of burnoffs and terraforming along a valley which spanned three South Continent districts—had bored him so much he started enjoying himself, taking one side or another. He hadn't let things run on that long, had he? That couldn't cause an emperor to abdicate—judging problems was his main job.

“Gregor, I'm sorry if I spoke so long, but you know you can't quit. We've been through this before. You can't abdicate.”

“N'tganna abbicat' jus' no more camp stool.”

Laisa bent over Gregor and kissed his forehead. “I'll explain it to Miles. You rest.”

Miles raised his eyes to heaven, his preferred method of avoiding Laisa's bosom. Staring at it was a huge taboo, although it was magnif—he stared at heaven again.

Laisa was angry, and growled at him.

“Gregor's got severe back strain. That stupid camp stool thing has to stop! He's in his forties now, been sitting on that damn thing, literally sitting on it, for twenty years, and it's catching up to him. He says it's traditional. Barrayarans!”

Miles glanced away from the heaving sigh she gave. That last had sounded like his mother.

“Ah, so it's the literal sitting part. Not the governing part.”

“Yes!” Now she was scowling.

“Gregor, you want me to find a better chair for you, is that right?”

No reply. Only snoring.

Miles spent his watch night in a guest bedroom in the residence, with Gregor's majordomo notified to wake him first if there were any problems. Before he fell asleep, he pondered the issue. Not a camp stool, then, but it couldn't be a throne. And ergonomic.

In the morning, Gregor seemed more rested, but still insisted something be done. He rejected Miles' first two suggestions, a rocking chair or a beach lounger, with an imperial snort.

“I mean it. You find a way out of this. And quit stirring everyone up for your own amusement!” Gregor went back to his groats and coffee. 

Gregor rarely if ever raised his voice, so Miles felt perfectly scolded. He continued to push his eggs around, piling them on a piece of toast. The yeasty slice smelled heavenly. The bread must have been made this morning. Butter, too, and it was fresh. Being emperor had some privileges.

Over the next week Miles hunted a solution. His first several options only annoyed Gregor, or in one instance made him laugh.

“A kneeling chair? That doesn't looks comfortable at all. Plus, kneeling to the Counts is something I will never do.

“An exercise ball chair? It would be laughed at before the Council even opened!”

“But it might be fun, sire,” Miles suggested, to a frowning Gregor.

“A...what in the hell is that?”

“It's called a saddle chair. See, it even has a cutout in the middle so nothing essential will be pinched.”

“Maybe I should find a horse to go with it. Persuading it to remaining polite during the sessions might be a problem.”

Miles brought in many examples of ergonomic chairs, including the one Gregor had in his office, but they were rejected as not fitting well with the idea of a dignified replacement.

“If I wanted to get an office chair, I'd have dragged mine in. No.”

Miles had no further suggestions at this time. The only things comfortable and not office chairs were simply large padded ones, suitable for homes, but not a good official-looking camp stool replacement. It would have to be something exotic but still with back support.

He met Gregor in his office, sitting in the ergonomic chair he refused to move. Gregor arched his back, stretching it.

“We might have to get you a throne after all, and the devil take the hindmost.”

“More antique slang?”

“Yes, and this time it's Aral Alexander. He was grounded one day and played with his comconsole, and the next thing I know he's regaling us with old cliches and proverbs.”

"A cat may look at a king.”

“'A leopard cannot change its spots.' He had to do research to discover what a leopard was, so no waste there.”

“A new broom sweeps clean, but an old one knows where the dirt is.” 

“Yes, well, the only cats that ever look at me are yours. The children are bothering me about a dog. Laisa is terrified of them—there weren't many on Komarr.”

“Not exactly an Auditor's job, sire.”

“Do you have another idea? I can't take much more. My doctor gave me this belt which gives my back small electric shocks.” 

He pulled up his fine white shirt and showed Miles a soft pad, about three inches in width, which wrapped around the body and fastened with small elastic snaps. There was a dial on the side which changed the electrical stimulation from gentle to quite strong.

“Does this work?” 

Gregor shook his head. “Not very well. But it's the only thing which keeps me from needing to live on pain killers.” He was gloomy again, although those who weren't familiar with Gregor might have had difficulty in telling the difference from Gregor's usual controlled expression.

It was the eyes, decided Miles. If you really knew him, you could see the small shifts in eye crinkling or squinting, or eyebrow twitches. If he was angry, though, you had to be quite familiar with the man to see the small bunching of his cheeks. He wondered for a minute what it would be like to serve under an emperor whose emotions were more open. His father had many emotions, from deep affection to all-encompassing rage, although he could camouflage his true thinking underneath these broad displays.

“I'll find something, as fast as possible. Meantime—I did some research—do you know when this camp stool tradition started? It only goes back to Dorca.”

Now Gregor's cheeks bunched. Miles hurried on. “He had pacified the counts, and was holding onto control as well as he could. He chose a camp stool to show them he could be a soldier in battle, not a god to rule over them. It's odd that the tradition isn't mentioned much. I thought it had been that way forever.”

Gregor continued with his version of a glare.

“I'm working on it, sire, I'll come up with something as soon as I can.”

But he couldn't find anything meeting Gregor's needs, search on the comconsole as he could. He was staring at the screen that evening when he heard a giggle and half-turned. A surprisingly strong little arm grabbed him around the neck from behind, while another one found his ribs and started tickling. He tried to get out of his chair and was pounced on further, resulting in the chair tipping him over, with two giggling little maniacs on top of him. Finally fighting his way to a sitting position, and discouraging the ticklers, he squinted at Ekaterin, who was in a white fleeced robe, holding her hand over her gurgles.

“This is payback for the jumping competition, isn't it?” She came forward to gather up the mischief-makers and pull them into her lap on the plaid sofa. He settled down with the children between them.

Prior to his marriage, Miles had never worried about furniture. But now every stick he bought or brought down from the attics had to be calculated for a rambunctious family. The sofas had to hold up to the jumping competitions, after all. Sofas, side chairs, hassocks, occasional tables—he had a built-in expert at furniture right at hand.

“Ekaterin. After you get these two monsters to bed, come back and help me here.”

In a few minutes she was back, sitting next to him in the second chair he'd dragged to the concomsole. He explained his problem to her, and she frowned. Tiny lines grew together in her forehead, and he pressed a kiss to them. 

She wiggled away from him, saying, “Let me think. I may have an answer, although it will have to be custom-made.”

“He's the emperor, almost everything he has is custom-made.”

“I think you want tree furniture, or tree-root furniture. It's a local specialty from the South Continent, in the Vorchristakis District.”

“Isn't all furniture made from trees?”

“Yes, but this isn't after the wood has been made into planks.”

She showed him weird constructions carved from tree-roots or trunks. There were two which struck him as possibles, teak tree root and burl wood. The teak-tree root chairs were parti-colored, with swirls from light tan to deep brown. The seat and sides were smooth, while at the very top of the back irregular and curved protrusions flowed. It was obviously all from the same root. Another was burl wood, golden-red with highly interesting swirls.There were other chairs carved from trunks, with or without the bark still on. Each one was uniquely beautiful, but far from throne-like.

“Mmm.” He tangled his hand in Ekaterin's loose dark brown hair, freshly washed. There were a few silver strands in front of her lovely ears.

“This will do for the shape, but I still need to work on comfort. I think we could cut around the seat here, see? And put in a small servo-motor so that Gregor could easily adjust the tilt of the seat. We'll put in a cushion with subdued Vorbarra colors, and padding on the back the same way. Just being in a chair will help him.”

He presented his ideas to Gregor in another breakfast meeting. This time he had sausage and pancakes, honey-brown and warm. Gregor had groats.

“Gregor, you've got the best cooks in the city. Don't you ever eat anything except groats?”

“I thought you were here about the camp stool, not my diet.”

“Just noticing, that's all. I have our ideas here.”

Gregor was much taken with the burl wood furniture, but fell in love with the teak tree root chairs.

“Those rounded things at the top—they look like waves. Or non-representational art. It's a medium height, good for my back, but not too tall. How soon can you have this made?”

It was a bit longer than Miles had hoped for, but in three weeks time the large chair was brought in the Council room. The deliverymen fussed with positioning it to Gregor's specifications, and soon he sat in it. He was enchanted with the servo-motor, tilting the the seat up and down, and asking Miles whether changes were noticeable from the seats.

“You can even tilt the back with this other button here, but that can be seen. You can change it before the session starts, though.

At the next session of the Council of Counts, Gregor sat smugly in his new seat.  
The Counts were variously stunned and curious, but none seemed angry. It wasn't a gilded throne, or even wood carved like a throne. It was an odd, beautiful construction which fitted an emperor with known eclectic tastes.

The burl wood and teak tree root chairs started a minor fad in Vorbarr Sultana, particularly in the artistic homes of the university district. The Vorchristakis district, a poor one with few resources, enjoyed the boom. 

A month later Gregor and Laisa invited the Vorkosigans for a garden luncheon. While the kids shrieked and ran, the adults sipped cool drinks. 

“So you replaced your old garden chairs, too.” The wooden furniture was glowing red.

Laisa smiled. “I got rid of them as soon as I knew he was happy with yours. These have adjustable seats, too.”

“What a great idea! More industry, more money for the Imperium, right, Gregor?” said Miles. 

Gregor was leaning back, tranquility on his features. “Especially since we are all getting so old.”

Miles would have argued, but he was playing with his chair, too. He finally got it exactly right, tipped back, and drowsed for a minute. Then there were shrieks louder than normal, with “Owww's thrown in, and he got up to see what the children had done now.

**Author's Note:**

> https://www.google.com/search?q=teak+tree+root+chairs&client=firefox-a&hs=EMV&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&channel=sb&tb
> 
> Or just google teak tree root chairs. Oodles of pictures!
> 
> Please also note: These pictures are just for pretty. No attempt has been made to determine any kind of fair trade/environmental/working conditions issues, but even if they are present on Earth, they are not on Barrayar!


End file.
